First, it is unlikely that even the most mad US President would decide to use nukes to put down a rebellion in these United States. Too many of his own supporters would be killed and the overall reaction would likely be for the rebellion to grow as a result of his action.

Second, a wide spread rebellion in the United States would likely have the sympathy of factions within the US military, if not their active support. The order to nuke Americans might lead to an active revolt by the military.

Third, in the event of a widespread rebellion, the rebels would probably quickly have nukes of their own. In the case of Obama, most ICBMs and tactical nukes are located on bases in Red states.

Morgan also indicated that it would be impossible for the US government to ever be a tyranny. The Founding Fathers did not think so. Daniel Webster, perhaps the greatest statesman in the generation that followed the Founding Fathers, summed up their wisdom in a speech on March 15, the Ides of March, 1837:

Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.

The Founding Fathers, in all they did, struggled to pass on the blessings of liberty to their posterity. Ensuring that the American people would remain, in the words of a British officer during the Revolution, “a people numerous and armed”, was one part of the safeguards that they gave us against tyranny. That Mr. Morgan, a newcomer to these shores, does not understand this is to be expected. That more than a few Americans join him in his ignorance is a shame for our time.

Donald R. McClarey

Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three and happily married for 35 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.

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22 Comments

Seems like Morgan is pretty persuasive to me. I mean, when you look at situations in Iraq and Afghanistan where our military had significant problems with obstruction from insurgents using small arms and homemade explosives, we solved the problem by using nuclear weapons, right? And since using nuclear weapons on US soil would be even more popular than using them in the Middle East, it’s obvious that the government would not hesitate to use nukes against any domestic rebels in some imagined future scenario. Heck, the only reason why Russia hasn’t used nukes is Chechnya is that they’re way, way more soft hearted than the US is.

Donald’s reply brings to mind a couple of points. In the case of Ruby Ridge and Waco, both factions were armed to the teeth, and yet the government was able to ‘subdue’ them (a less euphemistic term might well be more apt). However, it did so only after an aggressive PR/smear campaign that portrayed them as white supremacists and/or child molesters, thereby making a case to the wider populace that both groups were fringe elements beyond caring much about.

Even so, there was a kind of military (or at least ex-military) blowback that Donald also mentions, in the sense that Ruby Ridge helped provoke homegrown terrorist Timothy McVeigh, though he was able to murder his victims without guns or nuclear devices.

Mr. Shaw, the case of H. H. Holmes seems hardly relevant to the current discussion. No one’s for banning extended mags because they’re afraid of some psycho killing 200 hundred people one at a time over the course of several years.

“No one’s for banning extended mags because they’re afraid of some psycho killing 200 hundred people one at a time over the course of several years.”

Considering that approximately 312 people out of a total population of 330,000,000 were killed by rifles of all type last year, I think there would be more logic in attempting to ban evil thoughts than in banning any sort of rifle. Twice as many homicides were committed by people using nothing but their bare hands. The vast majority of gun homicides are committed with pistols which no one is seeking to ban, although decades ago there was an attempt to ban cheap pistols known by their critics as “Saturday Night Specials”. Politics is the explanation rather than logic since multiple slayings and their aftermath is the only time when the lost gun control crusade has any traction.

“The Second Amendment is something that was adhered to by Hubert Humphrey, John Kennedy,” Reid said. “So I don’t think anyone wants to diminish the Second Amendment, but I think everyone should just take a deep breath and realize where we are and where we need to go.

“We have too much violence in our society, and it’s not just from guns. It’s from a lot of stuff. and i think we should take a look at TV, movies, video games and weapons. And I hope that everyone will just be careful and cautious.”

January 19 is Gun Appreciation Day. Make it a point to communicate with your politician that you unconditionally support the right to keep and bear arms, and if that pol does not, you unconditionally oppose him/her.

Thanks for the prayers Mr. Shaw, but I think you again misunderstand me. I am in no way necessarily advocating for any type of new legislation with regards to firearms, ammo, etc. I mean simply what I said: H. H. Holmes seems hardly relevant to this discussion.

On a more general note, to no one in particular, a quote from my new favorite book:

“Sincere—that was the hell of it. From a distance, one’s adversaries seemed fiends, but with a closer view, one saw the sincerity and it was as great as one’s own. Perhaps Satan was the sincerest of the lot.”

I think the temptation is to overemphasize the last sentence, but clearly that is merely a rhetorical flourish. We know the King of Lies is anything but sincere. Thus, the takeaway is this: your opponents on this issue are just as sincere and well-intentioned as you are. To think they are the height of evil and self-interest while simaltaneously holding that the NRA is some bastion of nobility and virtue strikes me as detached from reality. Quit vilifying your opponents as satan’s complicit minions. It’s uncharitable, absurd, and makes you sound deranged. People can be wrong and still be decent people. Yes, even re: gun control!

Thus, the takeaway is this: your opponents on this issue are just as sincere and well-intentioned as you are.

Some yes, some no. You realize that this issue implicates matters of constitutional interpretation. Something Robert Bork said is relevant here: constitutional law has been destroyed as an authentic intellectual subdiscipline. Characters like Saul Cornell and Ronald Dworkin are many things. Sincere is not one of them.

The last time Americans had to use military weapons against their own government was not 1776…

It was 1946…Battle of Athens Tennessee(returing veterns of WWII took up arms to get their votes counted correctly.

Pulitzer prize winning writer Theodore White said “the F.B.I. didn’t investigate the local corruption because it went all the way up to the Speaker of the House of the U.S.” (paraphrase)
check it out on wikipedia…The Battle of Athens (1946)

Well put. But the same applies for those on the other side of the issue.

Depends on the time period. The problem in starboard discourse today is more self-deception than the deception of others. Also, see Jonathan Heidt’s work. The left in this country in our time differs from the remainder of the spectrum in their ability to summarize the opposition’s viewpoint without caricaturing it. See also Robert Bork’s remarks on official Washington. He identifies a large culture shift in that social set occurring around 1981 (“liberals turned vicious”). I think you can identify another one around 2001 (just who are the starboard equivalents of Bradford deLong and Paul Krugman?). Look at our Presidential candidates over the period running from 1968 to 1988 and then look at the one’s since. There is a large change in the balance of integrity, agreeableness, and personal accomplishment between the two parties.

Piers Morgan was the editor of the left-wing tabloid the Daily Mirror who was sacked for publishing photographs allegedly showing British soldiers mistreating Iraqi prisoners but which turned out to have been faked in England. Unfortunately he was not down for long; indeed he keeps popping up to everyone’s annoyance. His recent television series saw him interviewing ‘celebrities’, asking prurient questions about their sex lives in order to titillate the less discriminating viewers. Well, he was a tabloid journalist, after all. I’m glad we’re getting a rest from him and it’s gratifying to see him making a fool of himself on the other side of the pond. Don’t deport him just yet.

Forget the Second Amendment for a minute; the right to bear arms was part of English Common Law, which applied to the colonies, and later to the United States. It also applied to England; although firearms licences were introduced in the 1870s they were a revenue-raising exercise and were purchased at the post office for a few shillings. The first gun controls came in the 1920s; the government was worried about civil unrest, and a lot of weapons had been brought back from the Great War. In the 1950s there were a lot of unlicensed guns in circulation, but very little gun crime. Criminals tended not to carry them, since murderers who used firearms were unlikely to be reprieved, so the consequence of using them would be an 8 a.m. appointment with Albert Pierrepoint three weeks after conviction.

The situation in Britain now is that the only people who are armed are black gangsters and crack-dealers on inner-city sink estates, and the police, who have taken to swaggering about looking like Robocop and usually end up shooting the wrong people.

I pray for quite a few living, including several others on this page, and dead. At my age, I have many dear departed for whom I pray. Each loved me better than I loved him/her. I need to work each day on rectifying that deficiency.

I am not as well read as you. I’m pretty sure your favorite book quote is not from Paradise Lost.